


Communication

by atamascolily



Category: Barsoom - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Genre: Banths (Barsoom), Character Study, Female Friendship, Gen, Power of Words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28157022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: Thuvia is very good at finding ways to pass the time. Friends make everything easier.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2
Collections: Books of Yule





	Communication

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



All animals on Barsoom are capable of telepathy, but few are those who know that the dreaded banths who stalk the open plains also possess a language of their own. It is a growling, guttural tongue that Thuvia slowly masters in her years of imprisonment under the so-called Holy Therns. The syllables slip and stick in the back of her throat, choking her with coughs, until she learns to roll them out separately and slowly, while the banths wait patiently for her to finish.

It is a simple language of observations and commands, with little occasion for reflection, augmented by whatever mental images the speaker is capable of projecting to their audience. Thuvia suspects this last piece is what drew the banths to her in the first place--they are addicted to the images she creates for them, and are intelligent enough to know the origins of those mental creations.

Without this fortuitous gift, Thuvia would have died long ago, torn apart by the needle-sharp teeth and claws of the banths who now grovel at her feet while the therns laughed and cheered at her torment. Even now, she is not certain how she survived that first encounter, or what buried intuition led her to stand her ground and shout at the slavering creatures to stand down. All she remembers is the rush of blood to her head, her hearbeat pounding in her ears, as the trio of attacking banths collapsed at her feet, purring like the docile soraks Thuvia had played with as a child in the royal palace of Ptarth.

No one could believe it, least of all Sator Throg, the leader of the therns, still reeling from Thuvia's rejections of his advances. It was he who had condemned her to death, and it was he who ultimately decided her fate: if the banths wanted this red-skinned girl as their master, then their master she would be, dwelling as a slave of the therns for the rest of her days.

Thuvia comes to love the banths during her time as the therns' prisoner, to appreciate their simple lives and share what she can from her own. But they are not human, and she is not one of them, and it is impossible for her to forget her own people. Every day new pilgrims from the upper world descend down the River Iss into the cursed Valley Dor, but few survive in this terrible place long enough for Thuvia to meet them, let alone befriend them.

The therns themselves, of course, show no mercy or kindness to anyone. They are afraid of the banths, and they tolerate Thuvia only because they are afraid she might turn the creatures against them if they molest her. It is a thin layer of protection indeed, but the only one she has, and Thuvia clings to it, sleeping with the great beasts in their dens each night, their warm bodies pressed around her slender form to drive away the deep cold of night.

And so it goes for fifteen long years, until Sator Throg grows suspicious of Thuvia's command of so many secrets, and condemns her to death. This time, the therns will do the killing, since the banths will not oblige them.

Then John Carter arrives with his companion Tars Tarkas and everything changes.

(If there is one thing John Carter excels at it, it is change.)

***

When Sator Throg blocks her escape with her newfound companions, Thuvia doesn't hesitate. She shoots him with the radium pistol and attains her revenge at last. Even if John Carter had done nothing else for her, Thuvia would love him for that alone.

But of course, being John Carter, he does so much more, with that gallant poise and dashing smile like no man she has ever seen before.

Of course, Thuvia adores him. Of course, her cause is hopeless, for he is married to the incomparable Dejah Thoris, princess of Helium. Nevertheless, Thuvia vows to serve him as best she can, in whatever capacity he may require.

She has her chance at the closure of the Temple of the Sun, where Thuvia alone stands between Dejah Thoris and certain death.

As with the banths, there is no time to think, no time to reflect, only to act. With a guttural growl that rises into a shriek, Thuvia lunges, placing herself in between the princess of Helium and the treacherous Phaidor, shielding John Carter's beloved with her own body. As with the banths, Thuvia's desperate action works, long enough to disarm Phaidor once and for all and save Dejah Thoris's life.

Now trapped for a full year in the Temple of the Sun with those two, Thuvia finds herself a prisoner yet again. But she does not despair, for this time she is not without allies. John Carter and his son Carthoris await them on the outside, and Dejah Thoris waits with Thuvia on the inside.

And unlike the banths, Dejah Thoris can tell stories.

***

There is little to do in the Temple of the Sun, except to sleep, stretch, wait, repeat. Always, the waiting drags on Thuvia's nerves with so little else to do.

Every day--or what passes for day in this place beyond natural sunlight--she looks to the door to see if they are any closer to freedom. Every day, she scratches a new line on the stone wall to mark the time, keep track of the endless hours that blur together in monotonous repetition.

Neither Thuvia nor Dejah Thoris trust Phaidor, so they sleep in alternating shifts, watching each other's backs as they scan their unwelcome companion for signs of any further treachery. The daughter of Matai Shang is also in love with John Carter, and she is proud and arrogant enough to brook no rivals for her affection. Never mind that John Carter does not love her, and never will--especially if Phaidor murders the only woman he has ever loved. Phaidor is mad, and desperate, and dangerous enough to attempt it, anyway.

(It is a law of Barsoom that a man cannot wed a woman whose husband he has killed. It is a pity, Thuvia and Dejah Thoris agree, that the same is not true for a woman who kills the lawful wife of the man she desires to attain.)

And of course, there are the stories Dejah and Thuvia whisper back and forth to each other to while away the hours until their rescue.

It is Dejah Thoris who explains to Thuvia the details of John Carter's peculiar history: of his unexpected arrival upon Barsoom, his imprisonment by the Tharks, and his rise to power and authority among the green men even before he fully understood their language. Dejah Thoris recounts her own capture and imprisonment by the Tharks, and the many perils that she and John Carter underwent before they were finally united in matrimony in her ancestral palace in the shining city of Greater Helium.

Dejah Thoris speaks proudly of the ten years she and her husband spent together, before he was spirited back to his own planet by some mysterious force. Thuvia, who was prisoner of the Therns during the near-failure of the atmosphere factories, is overcome with wonder by this portion of Dejah Thoris's tale, for she had no idea how close she and all the inhabitants upon the planet had come to death then.

Dejah Thoris speaks grimly of the long decade of vain searches for their son, but she brightens when the subject turns to their son, the youth Carthoris, who hatched from his egg on the same day his father saved all life upon Barsoom with his heroism. Later, Thuvia will wonder if her connection with Carthoris dates from this time, how well she comes to know him from his mother's stories , even before Thuvia and Carthoris have exchanged more than a few words between them. Yet having seen the son of John Carter in battle prior to her imprisonment in the Temple of the Sun, Thuvia knows the other woman's pride in her sons' prowess is not misplaced.

For herself, Thuvia speaks freely of her childhood in Ptarth, with an occasional tale of the therns, or her life among the banths. Dejah Thoris does not ask after the circumstances that lead her to embark upon that ill-fated pilgrimage down the River Iss to the Valley Dor, for which Thuvia is grateful. Even now that the religious taboo has been revealed as a brutal sham, some matters are too painful to be broached directly.

As for Phaidor, she rarely bothers to address her companions, save for the occasional mockery or haughty correction, and both Thuvia and Dejah Thoris make a point of ignoring her taunts. Neither know what the daughter of Matai Shang does with her time, nor do they care as long as her malice is not directed against them.

Dejah Thoris never doubts that John Carter will be waiting for them when the temple doors finally open. Thuvia, too, knows better than to doubt, but the princess of Helium's unshaking faith bolsters her own flagging spirits on the days when hope itself proves too much. Each of them supports the other as best she can amidst the endless waiting.

Each day, Thuvia scratches the next marking on the wall, counting them over and over again. Each one brings them one day closer to John Carter.

One day closer to freedom.

**Author's Note:**

> Thuvia is my favorite character in the entire Barsoom series; I fell in love with her from the moment in _The Gods of Mars_ when she pulled out a pistol and straight-up shot Sator Throg without hesitation. Also, her ability to communicate with the banths is absolutely perfect. We stan a legend. 
> 
> For all that the Barsoom books focus on John Carter's skills as a warrior, I think the women of Barsoom exhibit a different kind of heroism: the small, quiet victory of survival in dark times and dark places, the patient waiting for the right opportunity to escape. I love the image of Dejah Thoris and Thuvia growing closer to each other during their imprisonment in the Temple of the Sun, and the same skills that Thuvia cultivates with the banths help her through the other ordeals she undergoes over the course of the series.


End file.
